Page 392 of The Hallmarked Man
‘We should—’
‘Yes,’ said Lawrence, and side by side, they returned inside.
Strike had just taken up a standing position on the edge of the room when he spotted Jade wending her way towards him.
‘Fanks for coming back,’ she said.
‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ Strike told her formally.
He could tell Jade was, again, on the verge of tears, but he didn’t begrudge her that today. No doubt she was feeling as he had at Ted’s funeral, as though an invisible paving stone was weighing on her chest.
‘You met ’er, d’in’ you?’
‘Rena Liddell? Yes,’ said Strike, and he realised by her tone of voice that she still had her suspicions about her husband’s precise relationship with his late friend’s sister. ‘They weren’t… there was nothing romantic there. He just wanted to make contact with her and give her that silver necklace thing.’
‘That shoulda beenmine, though,’ wailed Jade, bursting into tears.
Heads turned. Some of the expressions were accusatory: Strike was upsetting the widow.
‘Shall we go outside for a moment?’ said Strike, who didn’t fancy putting on a miserable floor show for the mourners, and he led Jade back into the smoking area. She collapsed into a wooden chair and he sat down beside her while she sobbed. At last, she plunged a hand into her black handbag and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
‘Not vaping any more?’ Strike asked, watching enviously as she lit up.
‘I’ll probably go back to it,’ said Jade, taking a deep drag of her Marlboro and blowing the smoke at the sky, ‘but I’m allowed a fuckin’ cigarette today, i’n I?’
‘Definitely,’ said Strike.
‘That silver necklace was Niall’s mum’s. ’Is dad bought it years ago, in Oman. Why’d ’e give it toRena, not me?’
‘I think,’ said Strike, ‘to make up for something. Guilt, that he survived when her brother didn’t? And he thought it was protective.’
‘So why’d ’e wanna protect’er, not me?’ insisted Jade, mascara streaking her face as she wept.
‘Because he knew she was in trouble and had no family, now that Ben was dead?’ suggested Strike.
Jade wept, her cigarette burned slowly downwards, and Strike wished he could take it from her and finish it. At last, Jade said,
‘You know that code, on the briefcase ’e filled wiv bricks? Know what it was?’
‘No,’ said Strike.
‘My due date, for the baby I lost. So… so it must’ve meant somefing to ’im, mustn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Strike. ‘It must… there were only bricks inside the briefcase, I heard?’
‘Bricks an’ stuff ’e’d written, all wrapped up in polyfene, but they told me nobody could read it. Waterlogged. I dunno if that’s true… maybe it was a le’er to me?’
‘Maybe,’ said Strike.
He personally would have bet that Semple had written what he’d believed to be the truth about his E Squadron mission, whatever that had been. He saw no other reason for him to leave hints behind him as to where he and his information could be found, or for its suppression, waterlogged or not.
‘Sometimes you wan’ someone so bad, even when you know it’s wrong an’ it’s not gonna work, but you still wan’ ’em, y’know?’ said Jade, in a choked voice.
‘Yeah,’ said Strike, and Charlotte smiled sardonically in his mind’s eye.
‘We weren’ no good for each ovver, but we still wan’ed it. Couldn’ get out of it. We wasn’ compa’ible, I know what ev’ryone said, an’ fine, they was righ’, but we did – I did love ’im,’ she whispered. ‘Ireally did. I always fel’ like I couldn’get at’im. Like, if I could justget into’im… but I couldn’.’
Strike thought of the belief he’d long ago abandoned, that he could somehow tinker with Charlotte, and fix her, and make her whole and happy.
